


The 2am Call

by CheerUpLovely



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Friendship/Love, Mentions of Cancer, Season/Series 04-05 Hiatus, Season/Series 4.5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 11:44:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8247527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheerUpLovely/pseuds/CheerUpLovely
Summary: The door was barely open when she came barreling through it at two o’clock in the morning, pushing past him in a flurry of Ugg boots - no heels? - and blonde curls  - no ponytail? - and already talking at a thousand words a minute. He could barely understand a full sentence spilling out from her unpainted - no make up? - lips, which was saying something. Over the last year, Oliver had gotten very good at filling in the gaps when she started babbling, but tonight either he couldn’t keep up with her or something was very wrong. 
When she spun to face him, continued rushing over her words, and he saw the addition of pale tear-stained cheeks, he knew that something was very, very wrong.





	

The door was barely open when she came barreling through it at two o’clock in the morning, pushing past him in a flurry of Ugg boots - _no heels?_ \- and blonde curls  - _no ponytail?_ \- and already talking at a thousand words a minute. He could barely understand a full sentence spilling out from her unpainted - _no make up?_ \- lips, which was saying something. Over the last year, Oliver had gotten very good at filling in the gaps when she started babbling, but tonight either he couldn’t keep up with her or something was very wrong. 

When she spun to face him, continued rushing over her words, and he saw the addition of pale tear-stained cheeks, he knew that something was very, very wrong.

“Felicity, take a breath,” he cut her off mid-word, unsure what she’d even been attempting to say as his hands fell onto her shoulders.

Usually, she would take a deep breath, close her eyes, and allow a calmer string of words to form, but this time her breath was caught in a choking sob. “Coast City.”

“What’s in Coast City?” he asked her.

“Mom.”

“They’re still travelling?” he asked. “I thought they settled in-?”

“Hospital.”

_Tears. No make up. Pale cheeks. Unkempt hair. Lounge pants. Disney shirt. Two a.m. Hospital._ _Mom._

“What happened?” he asked her.

“It was just blinking - the voicemail - and I couldn’t sleep because the light, that _damn_ blinking light - was keeping me awake and then I realized it was a voicemail that I forgot to listen to earlier - because of the meeting - and I kept forgetting - to listen to it, not the meeting - and when I finally did listen a half-hour ago it was from my Mom and she was telling me not to worry and not to try calling her because she was going into surgery, and they’re taking her into _surgery_ , Oliver, except it was three o’clock this afternoon and I tried to call her and Quentin as well and both of them have their phones turned off and—”

“–and you need to go to Coast City,” he finished for her, bringing her sentence to it’s natural stop when she was starting to look red in the face from lack of breathing.

“I can’t drive,” she shook her head. “The flights are all grounded from the storm that’s coming in and I tried to call in a million favors with the few people on the Board who still like me and they won’t let me do _anything_ with the private jet anymore, let alone in a storm, and I tried to call Barry but something’s going on and he can’t leave, and there’s no trains leaving for seven hours and the bus company has the driver strike _again_ and the _damn DMV_ won’t give my license back because my doctor won’t sign off on me driving in case I spontaneously lose the ability to use my legs and I—”

“Do you have a bag?” he cut her off yet again.

She took a few breaths, his question stunning her. “I…no, just my keys and my phone and oh _God_ , I didn’t even bring my _purse_ , how am I going to pay for–?”

“It’s fine, you’ve got everything you need,” he assured her calmly, hands gripping her shoulders slightly tighter to ground her. “There’s travel mugs in the top cupboard of the kitchen. I want you to go make a coffee, while I get dressed and then we’ll go.”

“Go?” she asked with a frown.

“To Coast City.”

“But there’s no flights or-”

“I’ll drive,” he told her. “It’ll be faster than waiting around for anything else.”

She didn’t have any more words after that, just a few shuddered breaths that he recognized all too well. These were the unstable inhales that didn’t fend off fully-fledged sobs. She looked at him as though she was surprised, but he told himself it was relief - after all, she’d come here at two o’clock in the morning looking for something, and he’d quickly offered up everything she needed.

“Felicity,” he whispered, releasing her shoulders but sliding his hands down to cover hers. “ _Coffee_. If you won’t be able to sleep in the car, you’re going to need some coffee, okay? Make a flask, so then we don’t need to stop on the way.”

“We can’t stop on the way,” she agreed.

“That’s right. So make a flask.”

“A flask,” she repeated. “And we’re getting dressed. Well, you’re getting dressed. I don’t have any clothes. I’m wearing pajamas but I don’t have clothes, I–”

“Felicity,” he stopped her once more. “ _Coffee_. I’ll be two minutes.”

—

Hours later, they arrived in Coast City, with Felicity wearing one of Oliver’s sweatshirts over her pajamas, and despite her insistence ten minutes earlier that she needed the bathroom she walked past three washroom signs to get to where she could see Quentin Lance standing near a coffee machine. After some mind chewing out (she was running on no sleep, after all) about not answering calls and keeping phones switched off, Quentin filled them in, and things fell apart gradually from there.

It lead to the two of them in a quiet family waiting room while Quentin went for another round of coffee. She’d drank so much at that point that her hands had a visible tremor, so Oliver grasped them tightly in his own to keep her steady.

“I don’t understand this,” she murmured, dropping her head to his shoulder. The fact that they’d been apart for several months didn’t stop the automatic movement of his lips finding her hairline. “How can this be happening?”

He used to call it buffering - like a computer - how something would get in her head and everything else would shut down while her brain worked at full capacity to get to grips with it. Sometimes she’d mutter to herself or think aloud, but mostly she’d sit in silence and move her lips wordlessly until she understood what she was dealing with.

She’s buffering now. But the download was stuck.

“How can my Mom have cancer?”

It was a question that no one had the answer to. She’d asked three different doctors that already, but all they had done was assure them that her mother was in recovery and she could see her soon. Quentin had filled in some gaps, but it didn’t give her as many answers as she’d hoped for. They knew now that they’d found a lump on the side of her breast, near her armpit. When they’d stopped in Coast City to get it checked they’d made them stay for a few days to get the biopsy results, and then they’d decided that the tumor needed to be removed immediately. Depending on the outlook after surgery, they’d have to look at chemotherapy, radiotherapy…

“Oliver, is this _really_ happening?”

He pressed his lips to the top of her head again. “Yeah, it is.”

“Why _her_?”

He almost told her the words on the tip of his tongue. He wanted to tell her about the statistics on cancer survival rates that he’d spent the last ten minutes reading on the poster on the wall ahead of them, but he knew that isn’t what she wanted, or needed, to hear.

“I don’t know,” he told her instead.

—

Oliver didn’t go into recovery with Felicity to see Donna, but he did wait outside for her and arrange for a hotel. Once he had a temporary address for them, he managed to get in touch with Thea and have her overnight some of Felicity’s clothes there and make sure that the Palmer Tech board knew that she needed some time to deal with a family matter. He knew that they wouldn’t like it, but they didn’t like anything that she proposed lately and this was a priority for her. When she came out at the end of visiting hours, she looked like a shell of her former self, and she didn’t speak until they were closed up in their hotel room (twin beds, there was no way he was letting her be alone during this).

“The doctors are optimistic,” she told him, playing with an amenity pack with a simple toothbrush, toothpaste tube and face cloth inside. “They said they got all the tissue out that they needed to, they don’t think it’s spread.”

“That’s good news,” he said quietly, with a small nod.

“She might still need treatment,” she swallowed, shaking her head. “She doesn’t want to lose her hair.”

At that, a tear slid onto her cheek and she shut her eyes as she dropped down onto the bed behind her. Oliver was on her knees before her by the time she’d had time to lower her face into her hands and take a shuddered breath. She’d held onto those tears for so long on no sleep and he had it on good authority that for as strong as this incredible woman before him was, even she had her breaking point.

“I can’t say that this won’t be hard,” he murmured quietly to her, drawing her head down to his shoulder. “But your mother’s strong, and they have hope. Optimism is a good starting point. Not a lot of people start this journey out with optimism.”

“But a lot of people still die from cancer,” she pointed out, that now ever-present fear voiced aloud.

“And a lot of people survive it,” he told her. “Your mom is going to be one of those people.”

She lifted her head at that point, giving him a shattered expression as she shook her head. “Oliver, you know you can’t promise me that.”

“Sure I can,” he assured her with a weak smile. “Have you ever tried telling your Mom not to do something?” Felicity snorted, shaking her head. “Exactly. She decides she’s going to beat this? I don’t doubt that for a second.”

Felicity took a deep breath, letting the exhale send her sinking back against Oliver, resting her full body weight against him. He didn’t as much as flinch as he held her against him. “I’m scared,” she confessed quietly.

“I know,” he whispered, letting his fingers fall into her hair, stroking over her scalp like he used to. “I’m scared too.”

“I thought you were confident?” she asked.

“In the end result,” he breathed out. “That doesn’t mean the next few months won’t be rough. I just want you to know that I’m going to be here for every second of it.”

–

Crammed into twin beds, his hand found hers in the space between and wrapped around her palm. Part of him wanted to be right beside her, to have her in his arms where he hoped she might find some comfort, but they’d had enough unfortunate motel encounters last summer to know that the two of them in a twin bed simply didn’t work.

She’d showered, and he’d stuffed a few more t-shirts than necessary into his duffel bag before they left so she’d had something to wear to sleep in at least. He’d picked up the spare charger for the cell phone as well so she’d put that on charge on the bedside table between them, just in case a call came in during the night. The hotel had provided her with a hairbrush to accompany the toothbrush, and that would suit them fine until the morning.

“Thank you,” she whispered, as she knotted her fingers through his without question.

“For what?”

“For being the person I can go to at two a.m,” she murmured with a weak smile that didn’t meet her eyes.

He squeezed her hand back. “Always.”

“This is going to be a rough journey, isn’t it?” she whispered.

Oliver tugged on her hand, pressing his lips to the inside of her palm before he let their hands drop again. “We’ve been on rough journeys before.”

“Together,” she whispered.

And he nodded. “As a family.”


End file.
